Building Our Lives on the Bible

Education for Exultation: By the Word

John Piper

John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including A Peculiar Glory.

Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith,
patience, love, perseverance, 11 persecutions, and sufferings, such
as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what
persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! 12
Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be
persecuted. 13 But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to
worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 You, however, continue in
the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from
whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have
known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom
that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that
the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good
work.

A People of the Book

In this series on Education for Exultation, we have focused on
God, Christ, the cross, and faith in Christ that comes by hearing.
The natural next step is to focus on what we hear, namely, God's
Word, the Bible. I wrote a paragraph to go with this message in the
outline in your three-ring binder that shows how crucial this topic
is:

We are a people of the Book. We know God through the Book. We
meet Christ in the Book. We see the cross in the Book. Our faith
and love are kindled by the glorious truths of the Book. We have
tasted the divine majesty of the Word and are persuaded that the
Book is God's inspired and infallible written revelation.
Therefore, what the Book teaches matters. Doctrine is important for
worship and life and mission. Education for Exultation is education
saturated by the Bible.

I want to show you where that conviction comes from. In 2
Timothy 3:10-11 Paul reminds Timothy about his sufferings for
Christ and how Christ has rescued him, over and over. Verse 11: You
have followed my "persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to
me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I
endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me!" Then Paul turns,
in verse 12, from his own personal experience to a general
statement about persecution: "Indeed, all who desire to live godly
in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." This is a sober preparation
for Timothy: "Timothy, if you follow my example in pursuing radical
godliness, you will suffer."

But then in verse 13 he warns Timothy not to think about running
from godliness to escape persecution. He says, "But evil men and
impostors [the opposite of godliness] will proceed from bad to
worse, deceiving and being deceived." So you don't want to go that
route, Timothy. It is better to be persecuted for godliness than to
have a fun time duped by the devil.

Don't Advance - Don't Go Forward

Then in verse 14 Paul puts it positively again: "You, however,
continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of"
(even if it results in persecution). I want you to notice a
contrast here between verses 13 and 14 that is more obvious in the
original language than in English. But you can still see it if you
look closely. In verse 13 the evil men, it says, "proceed from bad
to worse." The word for "proceed" means "advance" or "go forward,"
and in this case it is from bad to worse. Then in verse 14 Paul
says to Timothy, "You, however, continue in the things you have
learned." The word "continue" is the opposite of "advance" or "go
forward." It's the word for "remain," "abide," "stay." "You,
Timothy, don't advance, don't go forward - remain, abide, stay,
continue in the things you have learned."

There is a conservative impulse in Christianity - an impulse to
conserve: to remain and to stay and to abide. Be careful here,
though! There is also a liberal impulse in Christianity - an
impulse to be free from human tradition and to be radical and take
risks for God and make changes and to bow before God alone as our
ultimate authority, not man. But here Paul stresses the
conservative impulse. So we need to ask: Conserve what? Remain in
what? Stay with what? Abide in what?

Verse 14 says, "Continue in the things you have learned." But
what does that mean? Anything and everything you've learned? No.
Verses 14b-15 tell us what Paul has in mind: ". . . knowing from
whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known
the sacred writings . . ." There it is: it's the "sacred writings"
- the "Scriptures" - that he should continue in. Don't leave these.
Don't "go forward" from these. Don't "advance" from these. Don't
think that the "Word of God" is grammar school material while
something else (say philosophy or science or technology) is college
or graduate school. Don't leave the "sacred writings." Continue in
them. Conserve them. Keep them.

That is God's word to us as we launch into Education for Exultation. Bethlehem, "Continue in the things you have learned and
become convinced of. . . the sacred writings" -the Word of God, the
Bible. Don't advance. Don't go forward. Don't proceed from this.
Continue in this. Stay in this. Remain in this. This kind of
conservatism will make you the most radical, counter-cultural,
risk-taking, free people possible in Christ. If you leave the Word,
you will, in the end, just conform to the world - to the spirit of
this age. This may feel freeing for a moment. But it will make you
the slave of every passing fashion - and they are passing faster
and faster.

So God's word to us in this vision of Education for Exultation
is: Continue in your absolute allegiance to the unchanging truth of
God's Word, the Bible. Stay here. Abide here. Build children's
ministries on it. Build youth ministries on it. Build adult
ministries on it. Build church planting strategies on it. Build
marriages and families on it. Lead elder meetings with it. And
whatever else you do, John Piper, don't preach anything but the
Word of God, the Bible.

Saturated by the Word - Why?

When I think about what I could say to lift your sense of
commitment to the vision of Education for Exultation - the vision
of growing without growing - one of the most fundamental things I
want to say is: All our education and all our exultation will not
only be built on, but saturated by the Word, the Bible. If I were
in your shoes, that is what I would want to hear from my leaders:
We are not "advancing," we are not "going forward," we are not
"proceeding" to something more up-to-date or more modern. We are
"continuing," "staying," "abiding" in the things we have been
taught - the Word of God, the Bible.

It's very important for you to hear that and believe it. We want
your trust. And without this, we should not get it: remaining in
the sacred writings, the Word of God, the Bible.

Now why is this Paul's word to Timothy and to us?

Paul gives two kinds of reasons to Timothy to "continue in the
things you have learned . . . the sacred writings." One kind has to
do with the quality of the persons who taught him the Scriptures.
And the other has to do with the good effect of the Scriptures. You
might say, Paul reminds Timothy how the Scriptures came to him and
what they would do for him.

1. The Quality of Your Teachers

First, Paul tells Timothy to remember the quality of persons who
taught him the Scripture. Verse 14b: ". . . knowing from whom you
have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the
sacred writings." Remember, Timothy, who taught you to cherish the
Scriptures and showed you what was in them. Why should he? Because
that will be an ongoing confirmation of why he should love these
writings and "continue in" them.

Who does Paul have in mind? Who taught Timothy the Scriptures?
Verse 15 gives us a clue when it says, "From childhood you have
known the sacred writings." Who made Timothy know these writings
from childhood? Not his father. Acts 16:1 tells us that Timothy was
"the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a
Greek." It was his mother that taught him the Scriptures. And not
just his mother, but his grandmother too. In 2 Timothy 1:5 Paul
says, "For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which
first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I
am sure that it is in you as well."

These are two of the people Paul has in mind in 3:14 when he
says, "Continue in these things . . . knowing from whom you have
learned them." In other words, one of the reasons that Timothy
should hold fast to the Scriptures is that his mother and
grandmother were the kind of believers whose lives gave strong
credibility to what they taught him.

Now this is another great part of our vision of Education for Exultation. The aim is to be the kind of church that builds those
kinds of parents and grandparents, who build that kind of young
person - the kind who has the moral fiber to stand firm for God's
Word no matter what. I will not say more here, because in three
weeks I am going to devote a whole message to this issue of
parenting and teaching the next generation. But for now know this:
Education for Exultation means that we want our children and our
youth to remain with the Bible and continue with the Bible and
abide with the Bible all their life. And what this text teaches us
is that one crucial part of that steadfastness in the Word is the
quality of faith and life that the parents
have and that we as a
church have corporately.

That's one kind of reason Timothy should continue in the things
he has learned - the sacred writings, the Scriptures. The other
reason has to do with the good effect of the Scriptures - what they
can do for him that nothing else can do.

2. The Good Effect of the Word

What is that?

Verse 15b gives the answer, and verses 16-17 explain why this is
so. Verse 15 says, Remember, Timothy, "that from childhood you have
known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom
that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."
Don't leave the Scriptures behind, Timothy, don't advance, don't go
forward away from these, because they "are able to give you the
wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ."

There is no salvation from sin and guilt and condemnation and
hell apart from faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12; Romans 10:13-17;
1 John 5:12). And there is no other authority besides the
Scriptures to show you who Christ is and to give you his Word. So
don't leave the Bible, children. Don't leave the Bible, young
people. Don't neglect the Bible, dads and moms. Don't ignore the
Bible, single people. Under God, the "sacred writings," the
Scriptures, are the greatest treasure in the world. They alone make
us wise unto salvation through Christ. O don't neglect this
Book!

Why do the Scriptures have this power? Verses 16 and 17 give the
answer: "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in
righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for
every good work." The basic answer is that the Bible is the
inspired Word of God. Inspired means "God-breathed." God
superintended the writings of these books. He bore along the
writers, Peter says elsewhere (2 Peter 1:21), so that the words
they wrote are his words, and the meaning he intended is carried by
them.

Of all the wonderful things that we might say about this truth -
that the Scriptures are God-breathed - I will say one, because it
is so relevant to our series on Education for Exultation: The
divine origin and power of the Bible means that it (see verse 17b)
"equips people for every good work."

Why is this so relevant for the goal of exultation in God?

Because Jesus said in Matthew 5:16, "Let your light so shine
before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your
Father who is in heaven." The aim of good works is that people
might come to exult in our Father in heaven. Therefore, if we are
going to do education for this exultation, then our education must
equip people for these good works. And how shall we do that? 2
Timothy 3:16-17 says that Scripture is inspired by God and
profitable . . . so that, by this Word, people might be "adequate,
equipped for every good work."

If we want Education for Exultation, we must remain and stay and
continue with the sacred writings, the Word of God, the Bible. May
God grant us the grace until Jesus comes to remain unmoved from
this anchor of truth.